Lifting the Wheel of Karma
Paul H. Magid

Release Date: March 25th, 2012

Publisher: Point Dume

Page Count: 186

Source: Complimentary copy provided by author in exchange for an honest review (thank you!)

Joseph Connell is a gifted high school athlete from Montana, loved deeply by his family, yet tormented by nightmarish visions he can neither explain nor escape.

He believes the answer to what threatens to crush him can be found in the knowledge possessed by a mystical old wise man, who lives deep within the remote Himalayas of India.

If Joseph is ever to find the peace he so desperately seeks, he must get this wise old man to reveal what he truly knows, but that will not be easy... for this sage knows far more than he admits.

♥♥♥♥: The Journey by Dan O'Brien

The Journey
Dan O'Brien

Release Date: April 16th, 2012

Publisher: CreateSpace (self-published)

Page Count: 176

Source: Complimentary copy provided by author in exchange for an honest and unbiased review (thank you!)

The Frozen Man. The Translucent Man. The Burning Man. The Wicker Man. The guide known only as the Crossroads, together these are the signposts and totems of the world that the being called the Lonely inhabits. Seeking out the meaning of his journey, the Lonely is a being consumed by philosophical inquiry and adventure. Filled with exotic places and age-old questions, the Journey is a book that seeks to merge the fantastical and real. Join the Lonely as he seeks out answers to his own existence and perhaps the meaning for us all.

What Stephanie Thinks: I will say I've never read a book quite like The Journey... I don't really know what much else I can say about it. The novel follows the spiritual (read: imaginary) voyage of a soul named Th'bir, who loses (though later rediscovers) his identity at the embarkment of realm in-betweens, and thus is referred to as The Lonely. At first, The Lonely is as confused and in the dark as readers are—he doesn't know who he is, where he's from, or what he's doing at the surreal crossroads of discovery, but he, and we, are soon to find out.

He is instructed to receive guidance from various beings, but they're not really beings, not really human. They aren't necessarily gods or spirits either. They just are. From the Frozen Man he learns of the "necessity of logic ... the infallibility of thinking and observing without emotional bias in order to find the meaning of things" (74), from The Burning Man, he discovers "the obscurity of definition, the reality of emotional content and the inspection of all things created and man-made to find out their deeper significance. To perhaps approach life and the realities of what that encompasses from a humanistic position, to see how they apply to the individual, not as a broad statistical judgment taken without relevance to how stratified life truly is." In other words, The Lonely is exposed to infinite, inconsistent ideas, and it is up to him to analyze and sort them out on his own. It is up to him to reconstruct himself out of the ideas he is thrown, and the long, grueling spiritual journey is where it will happen.

Existence, as well as the purpose of life and death are also pondered upon. While the notions and wisdom conveyed are thought-provoking—I found myself engaged in concepts that were always in the back of my head, but never really brushed upon until O'Brien mentioned them—I found this book overall to just be weird. There's no real plot, no real characters, no real point, and that to me, is unsettling. The structure is a mess, and the flow very hard to follow. I'd love so much to just accept a story like this for how it is, in all of its philosophical and psychological disarray, but I could hardly make sense of, let alone enjoy it, so I'm afraid it isn't something I could recommend.

Dan O'Brien is not a letdown with words, though. His style is lush and fast-paced, nothing I have to dig too deeply with, very easily skimmable. Which is why it's a shame how the absence of essence made The Journey a difficult read. Reminiscent of Nicolai's The Case, the cluttered plot, unclear intention, and ambiguous storyline constitute this story, and they really are all it has to offer. This book is very new age-y—strange, but not in an intriguing way, just in a "what the fuck did I just read" way. Maybe after a bit of polishing and refinement, I could try this one again, but for now, no thank you.

Stephanie Loves: "'Men find validity in their lives from histories and proofs, ignoring the mysterious beauty that surrounds them and the thrall of those things unexplained. Babies grow into children and then into adults. First, they are cared for greatly for in order to be able to care for the generation next and so on, as needed. However, in youth there is a time during which we learn of something that we often too easily let go of: imagination."

Radical Rating: 4 hearts: So-so; reading this book may cause wrinkles (from frowning so much). ♥♥♥♥

♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥: Speculation by Edmund Jorgensen

Speculation
Edmund Jorgensen

Release Date: December 22nd, 2011

Publisher: Inkwell & Often

Page Count: 264

Source: Complimentary copy provided by author, via Novel Publicity, in exchange for an honest and unbiased review (thank you both!), as part of the Speculation book tour

Andrew Wrangles has a decision to make. His best friend Sothum, a philosophical and financial genius, has just died and left him a choice in his will: ten million dollars or a sealed envelope.

Andrew's wife Cheryl doesn't see this as much of a choice. She wants Andrew to take the money, and what little patience she has for his speculating about what could be worth more than ten million dollars is wearing thin very quickly.

But as Andrew digs deeper into the secret life that Sothum lived, he finds more questions than answers. Does the envelope contain the fate of a vanished mutual friend? The answer to a terrible cosmic riddle? The confession to a crime? Is Sothum just playing a final private joke? Or has Andrew become a pawn in a game—a game that Sothum died playing against a bigger opponent than Andrew can imagine?

What Stephanie Thinks: Genius is madness. Brilliance is insanity. Before I rave about this one (caution: my review may be slightly, just slightly messy, flooded, enthusiastic to the point of irritation, hazardous, et cetera, et cetera), let me just say: Speculation is an absolute work of literary genius. I'm still baffled and scratching my head about how Jorgensen has managed to package a mystery and intellectual thriller into carefully-coined novel surrounded by intense allure and philosophy, but whatever his secret is, I'm not complaining.

Philosophy is a topic I thought I'd always want to stay away from. I'm a fairly logical and distinctly passionate person—it's hard to win an argument with me if you really get my blood flowing, if I do say so myself—and math and reason have always been my forte, but when I took my first philosophy class in high school, I discovered I simply could not stand that feeling of being unsettled, of not being able to solve everything and anything like I could in Algebra. Philosophy was something I thought I could really enjoy, but it ended up being one of the hardest courses I ever took, because it was the one I could never, for the life of me, wrap my head around. It's something I, even to this day, consider a field that only prodigies like Plato, Socrates, and Sothum (unseen and only heard from, yet still the most important character in the book; more on him later) can truly be successful at. I don't know if it's eternal patience or some sort of gene in their DNA that makes them able to figure out such wonders of the world or what, but I guess that difference is what associates me with Andrew, our other main character, a professor of philosophy, and separates me from Sothum, who would identify as a legitimate philosopher.

Like Andrew, I experience cheap thrills when I talk about philosophy, but am not so gifted as to actually be able to instigate it. Sothum as a character, and the valuable points he presents, impresses me to the point of awe. I can't even begin to tell you how eerily accurate and just staggering his mindful contributions are. Had we a character like him in real life, I feel he'd be the modern Einstein. Which brings me to think, what does that make Jorgensen? The creator of a fictional genius—is he a genius himself? A fucking god? I don't know. But that's the vibe I'm getting right now.

Anyway. More about the book. The structure is pretty leisurely, drawing out scenes heavy with dialogue and weak in action over a span of a few weeks, yet it is complex because multiple perspectives come into play to constitute it, and it isn't just Andrew's that seems to matter. Mostly I would say this book is composed of flashbacks and random (but brilliantly remarkably genius) musings, and I love that about it.

Jorgensen's definitely a way with words; while his style isn't phenomenal, it's good enough to keep me reading and the story in tact. He's quite a few amazing moments—it was hard for me to pick just one quote in my Stephanie Loves section!

Some other random stuff I love about this book (bear with me, most of this is what I furiously jotted down onto the title page while reading because I couldn't bear to put it down, nor could I risk forgetting all my thoughts, because after such a mind-blowing read, it was bound to happen): the secondary characters. Cheryl, Andrew's immensely grounded wife, is a dynamic character I enjoyed getting to know, who's all of kickass and lovable. Buddy, one of Andrew and Sothum's acquaintances (the third of their Three Wise Fools, as they call themselves) exudes a natural but so very real dislikability, which, go figure, made me like him (a little). Jorgensen certainly displays his ability to bring a story to life in Speculation, down to the last illumination of the senses and tug of the heart. Complete with jarring revelations of Sothum's death, of Andrew's present, swirling, nostalgic recollections of a developmental and significant past, Speculation is a meandering dissertation on not only philosophy, but also on logic, emotions, and arguments between religion and mathematics.

Andrew's decision to either take the money or the sealed envelope (and SPOILER SPOILER There IS a decision, this isn't one of those dumb books where it's open-ended and the author says 'it's up to you to decide what our protagonist does next') isn't even what is most important in Speculation. Rather, Jorgensen's contemplations of, through the resonating characters of Sothum and Andrew, the essence of money, the implications of interpersonal relationships, secret lives, time, and ultimately, in life, what truly matters most, are most expressive.

I certainly would read this one again, but I think the story and plot would be ruined for me, just because I know how it ends, and because I know how significant it is. That's the only reason why I'm not giving it my special crème de la crème award (aka 10 hearts puahaha). There's nothing Jorgensen could have done to better it, because it's just the nature of the book; unfortunately, for me, it might thus be a dull second-read. But seriously, everything else about it is absolute perfection, at least in my philosophy-philic mind. I'd reread it solely for the purpose of inspecting and overanalyzing (again) the pure written prowess of Edmund Jorgensen through Sothum's ability to completely fuck my brain over. Maybe as a piece of fiction, it could fade out, but as an utter paragon for philosophy, I'd say it's a keeper.

Stephanie Loves: "Habit and routine are what make my life possible here. My stepfather used to say that the difference between the two was that routines were hard to get into and habits were hard to break. He may have been right, but these days I can't notice much that distinguishes them. I would sooner break my leg than one of my routines, and my days are so fully planned that they leave little room for new habits to creep in."

Radical Rating: 9 hearts: Loved it! This book has a spot on my favorites shelf. ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥

♥♥♥: The Case by Mel Nicolai

Hey guys. Why am I up this early? It's actually not early at all but we have a two-hour delay at school today. WOO HOOO!!!!! You don't know how happy I am. So here I am blogging instead of getting my two extra hours of sleep—what the hell is wrong with me?

Firstly, I want to say a great big thanks to those who are following and reading the blog. Thank you all for commenting, for messaging, for reading. YOU guys make me so happy :)

Also, I have been very very bad. I still have not mailed out some of the prizes I owe to winners because I haven't had a chance to run to the post office yet! I sent everyone I owe a postcard in the mail a few days ago, and got a chance to send out swag packs since they only take a stamp or two, but for the people who won bigger prizes. Outta luck! I PROMISE I will get them out as soon as I can. These days have been so hectic for me (it's school, rugby training, music lesson... SNOW DAY) so I really hope you understand. I'm also participating in another hop this weekend so stay tuned for that. I will definitely have prizes mailed out faster this time around.

Now here is a book review. Enjoy!

To be honest, it took me about a month to finish The Case by Mel Nicolai, a mere 108-page book, which says a lot about it. Physically, it was very easy: the font big, the spacing wide, the chapters only a couple pages each; but I didn't understand half the words, and had to read most of the sentences at least four times each to make the most generic sense of them. Occasionally, the sentences would be comprehensive to my mind. Often, they wouldn't.

The entire novel was like reading a philosophy text—more specifically, I related it to Oscar Wilde. Everything in the book seems quotable, a thoughtfully calculated idea the author wanted to convey. Perhaps if the words hadn't been so scientific (well they sounded scientific to me. I mean, who's expected to know what "cingulate" means, anyway?) I could have enjoyed Nicolai as much as I enjoyed Wilde. 

The main problem I had with The Case though, is how it lacks a plot. Maybe Nicolai is such an phenomenal, recalcitrant writer, that I'm too dumb to know what he's talking about. Maybe there is a plot that I have just missed. Either way, I found no point to all 108 pages of the book.

Brock Meirski, the protagonist, is an unbelievably perspicacious, speculative character, but nothing really happens to him. He is supposedly on The Case, but I still don't know what The Case is exactly, even though the book ends, talking about The Case. All Brock really does is wake up, use the toilet, go to the grocery store, say hello to his neighbor, meet a pretty girl, invite the pretty girl to his house, then go to bed. The next morning, he does it all over again. The next morning, well... I don't think there even is a next morning. If there is, I am definitely missing something from the story. My essence is, no excitement or meaning radiate from The Case's words; nothing compilable, nothing to analyze. There is no suspense, no climax, no falling action, which are all necessities of even the most basic fictional story. There were some really neat observances on life and on people, but in the end, it was like adding a dab of different colors of paint to a palette and then mixing the shades all together; a big messy colorless blob.

Sadly, I cannot say I would recommend this book, because of how absurdly aimless it is. If you're studying metaphysics and want to use The Case as a resource to enhance your studies, go ahead. Otherwise, try to keep your distance.

Stephanie Loves: "The present, life in the present, is always up ahead. It's almost like when you're born, a race starts. The doctor slaps you on the ass and everyone and everything takes off at speed. Only you can't run yet. It'll be a few years before you can get in the race, and by then you're so far behind you'll never catch up."

Where Stephanie Got It: Complimentary copy provided by LibraryThing in exchange for an honest and unbiased review (thank you!)

Radical Rating: 3 hearts: Not a fan; I don't recommend this book. ♥♥♥
 

Thanks, guys. You all rock. And roll. Keep on bearing with me xx